This is the second time I've camped in my Sienna but the first time was just sleeping in the back so I didn't have to get up early to get to a trail race. This time is different. I'm still just sleeping in the back. I'm glad I didn't set up the tent because we're having quite a storm with lots of wind. I'm writing this while lounging on my air mattress bed and enjoying the cooler air. Cooler is obviously relative because it is still 90 degrees out. However it was 111 degrees when I came through the front gate and it was 97.2 at my campsite. Of course I used the word “camped” which somehow indicates roughing it. Be assured. I am not roughing it. I have light, a large electric fan, beer, chips, the most recent RW, and my Kindle (on which I’m writing)
I said this time is different. That's because this is a dress rehearsal for my ultra run in three weeks - right down to spending the night in the woods. When I was here for the trail race I drove 45 miles round trip for dinner at a restaurant. In Arkansas I might not have that option so I'm going to make dinner over a little camp stove. (Assuming the weather lets me.) I'm going to have to put my contacts in in the van. (Temp now down to 88.6. Yeah!)
Just realized I forgot the bananas. (Personal Note to Myself: Dummy, never forget the bananas!) However, I remembered the beer. You have to take care of hydration, sodium and iron (beer and chips). But I will miss my bananas. They are a mainstay of my nutrition program. I brought a Coleman bag meal for tonight. Cheesy Tomato Pasta. All I have to do is boil 12 oz. of water. Right now, however, I'm not going to stick my head outside. I brought 4 extra Ensures. They have the calories, sodium, and carbs I need. I can drink a couple of them for dinner if needed.
My only concern about tomorrow is the weight of my Camelbak Rim Runner. I've loaded and reloaded three times and it is still 12# without hydration. I have a 3L bag. That's 6.33#! In training I've never gone over 10#. The difference is the food. Here at the Hoosier National Forrest I run loops around a 17mile course, so I leave food in the van and replenish as I go by. In AK it is one long loop, so I have to take everything with me. All I have is my first aide kit, survival kit, a change of shoes and clothes, the hydration and food. Can't come up with anything else to leave.
I use to run with a homemade mixture of cornmeal, chia and honey like the Aztec warriors carried. Don't know why I stopped. Probably just got lazy. Gu is easier. Recent research has learned why the Aztec warrior would march all day and still kick butt on a handful of chia. Chia seeds are high in protein, fibre, omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, calcium, iron, manganese and phosphorous. As well as being exceptionally nutritious, Chia seeds have a special property which makes them the ideal endurance food. When they are soaked in water, the soluble fibre forms a thick, gel like mass. It is believed that when Chia seeds are eaten a reaction occurs in the stomach forming a barrier between carbohydrates and digestive enzymes, thus slowing the conversion of carbohydrates to sugar. The result is that Chia seeds are a super slow release energy source, avoiding the usual blood glucose highs and lows. The other important result of this reaction is the retention of water. Chia seeds are exceptionally hydrophilic – i.e. able to absorb up to 12 times their weight in water. When in the gut, this means that water loss is minimized and electrolyte balance is maintained for longer. I’ll have to find a reference for you. In any case, I think I’m going to have to start doing that again.
Well, the wind and thunder stopped without any rainfall and I went out to start dinner. This is why you have dress rehearsals. It took over 45 min to boil 12 oz of water over a sterno flame. Between the storm that never really materialized and the water, I'm down to a max of 7.5 hours sleep before my planned start time. On the up side, the Coleman trail meal was easy, nutritious and amazingly tasty. I felt so good that after a last visit to the nearby toilets I did a quick run around the campgrounds.
Now it's time to sleep. Want to be on the trail by 4am. I'll finish this when I'm done tomorrow afternoon.
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Morning came early as it has a bad habit of doing. Actually I awakened feeling quite refreshed just before 3am, rolled over and went back to sleep until my alarm went off at 3:30am. Considering the heat, I had a very comfortable night. A quick visit to the nearby bathroom-shower building to get ready and stick my contacts in my eyes, load my Camelbak hydration bladder (very easy with their patent system), throw everything in the back of the van, and it was off to the trailhead.
Nothing makes you realize that you are still a wee bit afraid of things that go bump in the night than a big dark forest. At 3:45am it is still quit dark and the forest takes on a whole new appearance. Of course, I must admit that it doesn’t help to have well-meaning friends who tell you that the number of snake-bite fatalities has doubled this summer, there have been several bear attacks, and coyotes are on the increase in the national forest. Oh, wow! That trail is awfully dark even with my handy-dandy headlight. But not to be deterred I got ready to go after making a mental note to politely ask my well-meaning friends to keep such information and accounts to themselves.
Alas, as I was getting ready I unthinkingly rubbed my eyes. Normally that just repositions my contacts so that I have to blink several times and wait a few minutes before I can see well again. This time it popped out the right contact. Oh, well. I do believe that I made some reference to “dress rehearsal”. There is a good chance that I won’t have a beautiful bathroom facility in AK and might have to put my contacts in while sitting in the van with my lens case, wetting solution, etc., on my lap trying to see in the van’s vanity mirror. Long story short . . . I ended up putting the contact in and taking it out four times. First of all I damaged the original lens, so I pulled out one of the new lens I carry with me. It went right in. My vision was a bit off but that happens sometimes and clears up quickly. It was already 4am and I didn’t want to waste any more time, so off I went.
It was 86.5 degrees at camp when I awakened and about the same at the trailhead. I sat off at a trot down the trail which I knew would be straight, clear and relatively flat for several hundred meters. I left my gloves in the van because of the heat. Personal Note to Myself: don’t leave your gloves in the van no matter how hot it is. Before I got to mile one I was drenched in sweat and was having trouble holding my Lexi poles. I probably should have gone back, but every onward.
I was also trying out my new Casio Pathfinder - 7 functions and 4 sensors including compass, barometer, thermometer, and altimeter. Designed for trekkers and trail runners. I forgot to calibrate the altimeter, so it could only tell me the difference between points, but that wasn’t of primary importance to me anyway. The watch worked like a champ.
Another Personal Note to Myself: don’t write your split times on your arm with a Sharpie. It is not a permanent marker. I hadn’t hit the first split by the time the sweat had removed almost all traces of my times, and I wasn’t going to get into my backpack to get out my map. Since I know the Two Lake Loop trails quite well I knew that the first junction (I used the junctions as splits) was 4.7 miles, the second was 6.6 miles, the third was 13.3, etc., so I could do the math in my head. My plan was to keep my pace between 18-20 minute miles. That, of course, counts stops, picture taking, getting food out of my pack, pee brakes, etc., and walking several of the bun-buster hills. I figure that if I can do anything close to 20:00 in the Ozarks, where >5 miles of the trail goes perpendicular to the mountains meaning that you’re constantly either climbing a mountain or trying to get down, I’ll be doing well.
By mile 1 I was seriously thinking about going out to the first split (4.7 mi) and returning. The heat was really getting to me. Surprisingly the 18-20# Camelbak didn’t bother me at all, although I need to train with it on for the next couple of weeks. It held snug to my back with good chest and waist belts. It is also designed to let air circulate between you and the pack. Nice! It was simple to adjust, even while on the go, and, as many times as I took it off and put back on, I found that it was quite easy. I must admit that I did miss having a place on the front to stick a handful of Gu or other items so I didn’t have to take off the pack to get them. I’m sure I would have been better about nutrition on this run if I didn’t have to remove the pack to get to the food. Other than that I was quite pleased with the Camelbak. Personal Note to Myself: put one of the small zipper bags that go on a Fuel Belt on the waist strap. Then you can carry Gu, etc., up front.
I reached the first split in about 10 minutes under my estimated time. I was doing around a 17:00 minute mile. A little faster than I wanted, but I felt good and didn’t feel that I had been pushing. There are some nice long, relatively flat, sections on that part of the trail. I decided to go on to the next junction which was 1.9 miles away. There I had the option of continuing north and into the most difficult part of the trail – 6.7 miles with no way out – or turn east and return to the van in about 1.7 miles.
At the 6.6 mile point I was still feeling good. Granted everything was soaking wet from sweat but I felt good. Some of you know that I’m one of those runners who wears the least legal amount of clothing when I run. As long as I don’t get arrested you don’t have to look at my 66 year old legs. I was wearing Frank Short running shorts that just cover the essentials. They were sticking to my legs and I briefly toyed with the idea of just taking them off and running in my skivvies. But I knew, with my luck, I’d come around the corner and be facing a troop of Brownies or something, so I didn’t strip. In any case I now had to make the decision – short way to the van, long way farther into the wilderness.
I noticed that my feet actually got wet running through some grass! That was great. On the south side of the forest there were horrible big cracks in the ground because it was so dry. Here there were no cracks. All of the banging and booming last night had evidently provided the northwest portion of the forest with much needed rain. (I would later encounter a stream that actually had some water and several puddles.) I also noted that the temperature seemed to have dropped. I checked the temp and sure enough it was down to 80.2!!!! Not wanting to be delayed by indecision, I kept running north and west. 6.7 miles until the next decision … short way or long way home.
I had already decided that there was no way I was going to do 30-40 miles today. If I could get off the trails before it hit 90 and get 15-20 miles in, I’d be satisfied. After all, this was a dress-rehearsal, not a do-or-die.
It was very nice of Mother Nature to turn down the heat for the back 6.7 miles. That’s one of the toughest stretches of this loop. The tree canopy isn’t very heavy in this part of the forest. This is also the highest altitude and from the looks of it, it has taken several hits from passing tornadoes. The canopy, however, is heavy enough to keep the trail clean. (I really dislike running on grass in a very big way!!)
I learned three important things on this leg of my run. Firstly, I love peanuts but not when I’m running. Nutritionally they’re great. Unfortunately they’re so dry that I have to drink a lot to keep from gaging and end up with an upset stomach. Personal Note to Myself: another reason to go back to Pinole and Chia seed.
Secondly, I realized that I still couldn’t see well out of my right eye. In fact, if I wanted to see something clearly I had to cover my right eye. It didn’t hurt but I did worry that I had done something wrong in the van – like get insect repellant in my eye. (As I turned out the lens is just bad, but I worried about that for several hours.) For the first few months after I started wearing contacts I didn’t go anywhere without a contact kit. I was sure that there was one in my first-aide kit. I stopped. Alas, I had taken it out. Personal Note to Myself: Dipstick, put the contact and eye-care kit back in the first-aide kit before you go out again.
Speaking of insect repellant, I got some Herbal Armor. It is a non-DEET repellant. I got it for two reasons: (1) I’m a tree-hugging environmentalist, and (2) the DEET products say not to use them on synthetic materials. As far as I know running “tech” materials are synthetic, so I wanted to avoid DEET if possible. The Herbal Armor said that it was effective for only two hours. I can live with that. I stopped and reapplied faithfully to give the product a chance. I came away with no chiggers and only three ticks, so I’d say that was a successful trial.
The third important thing I noticed was that my urine was getting darker. It wasn’t too bad but it was getting darker. Actually, considering the heat and the amount that I was sweating, I was just happy that I was still making urine. Nevertheless, it reminded me of a warning that I read about hyponatremia – viz. if your sports drink has too high of a carb level, it takes longer to empty from the stomach, and on super-hot days you really need quick clearance. I’ve run with a mixture of Gatoraid and whey protein for a long time, but . . . Personal Note to Myself: check to be sure that the carb level of my mixture isn’t over 10%.
Like I said, my goal was to keep my pace no faster than 18:00 and no slower than 20:00. That’s a pretty narrow window, but thus far I was just doing around 17:00. I was looking at my watch and doing the math. According to my calculations, if I had been able to do the tough 6.7 mile leg at a 20:00 pace I had about 25-30 minutes before I came to the next junction and my final decision. But as I was doing that math I became aware that I knew this hill. Right around the corner was the junction. I had done an 18:47 pace. It was right where I wanted, but I must admit I was surprised. I felt like I had slowed down a lot, but I realized that there was a fair distance at the beginning of the leg where I could open up without expending extra energy. I had so enjoyed it but I had forgotten about it until I saw my time.
At this junction I had done 13.3 miles and I was still feeling really good. If I turned north I’d be back at the van in 2.6 miles. If I kept heading east it would be about 5 miles. I elected to keep heading east. After all, going straight meant a nice long downhill run and that felt good at that point.
The arthritis in my hips started acting up on downhill runs at about mile 15. For those of you who don’t know me, I have very bad arthritis in my knees and hips. I have a nasty spur on the left side and the chiropractor is still trying to figure out how I run. Actually, once I’m warmed up (sometimes taking up to 2 miles) my legs feel better than they do any other time. They like running - after the pain of warm up. Before I started running I actually walked with a cane if I went to a park, zoo or anywhere where I had to walk a lot. My hips started hurting most likely because of the pressure on the joints running downhill. Non-runners don’t understand that downhill is actually harder that flat or going uphill.
After crossing the last dam (heading basically south) I noticed that the ground was again cracked and dry and the temperature was going up rapidly. I was honestly worried about crossing this dam. The temperature was obviously quite high. I didn’t stop to check it. And there was no protection from the sun. Once you traversed the dam you had a long hill to climb without protection. By the time I got to the tree-line I had to stop and rest. That 0.4 mile in the blazing sun just about did me in. I don’t think I totally recovered.
From that point on I drank constantly, poured water from my filter bottle over my head, ate a couple of Gu (stomach couldn’t handle anything more), kept my head down and feet moving. Nothing was sweeter than cross the stream (totally dry!) that marks 1.2 miles to the trailhead. I had wanted so much to do 30-40 miles today, but there was no way I was going any further in this heat. Yes, my hips hurt a bit on the downhill runs but my legs felt strong. It was the rest of me that wasn’t going any further.
At the trailhead the temperature registered at 94. There was a troop of Boy Scouts getting ready for Philmont (New Mexico scout ranch). Evidently a lot of troops come to Two Lakes to have their dress rehearsal. They were getting a late start in high heat, but they assured me that they were prepared and that they were going to take 3 days to cover about 5 miles less than I had just done in 5:55. I made some recommendations and watched them hoist their enormous packs. Some of them were bigger than the scout. It is going to be a long three days with those packs. I noticed them watching me and realized that, without thinking about it, I was standing there talking to them and wringing the sweat out of my shirt. There was a puddle on the ground.
I turned the van’s AC on high and cracked open a bottle Ensure. The next stop was the bath house for as cold a shower as I could stand. Even with that I felt like I was giving off heat as I returned to the van. With a wave to the gatekeeper I stopped at a nearby convenience store for a pint of chocolate milk and 32 oz drink to go with my chips. I’d have my recovery meal at home.
All in all it was a very good day. As a dress rehearsal, it went well. I learned a lot, and that’s what it’s all about. My equipment served me well under harsh conditions and I would have no hesitation recommending any product I’ve mentioned. I admit to being disappointed that I only covered a bit over 18 miles. That's at least 12 miles less than I had hoped for, but they were probably the toughest 18 miles I’ve ever run . . . not from the perspective of trail or terrain but the challenge of running in such extreme heat. Despite my disappointment in not getting the miles I wanted, I had to feel good about the run. I didn’t turn back, as I had originally planned when I realized how hot it was. I accepted the challenge, followed all of the safety, hydration and nutrition rules, and ended up with a pace of 19:43. It can’t get much better!
